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One hour after the fight
He knows something is wrong when she pulls up short upon their reunion at the Lookout. She knows he hates public affection, that he isn’t the sort that would welcome her throwing herself in his arms and kissing him deeply. Even so, she wouldn’t let his squeamishness keep her from a quick embrace, not in this kind of circumstance. At the very least a touch on the arm and a quiet grin.
Instead, she stops two feet away and gives him a thumbs up and a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes, and he knows. He has broken something important.
Four hours after the fight
Trunks won’t let him go. The boy was forced to shoulder the fate of the world today, but really, he’s only a child and he doesn’t want to lose his father, not ever again. His son refuses to let him out of sight for even an instant; keeps touching him as though to assure himself that his father is alive and real and here. She suggests, “Trunks, why don’t you and your dad stay together in his old room tonight?” The boy looks thrilled. He looks up at her and sees the truth: she doesn’t want him in their bed.
He manages to get a word when the boy goes to brush his teeth. He wants to explain to her but before he can say anything she turns to him. Her face is filled with anger and misery as she asks of him, “When you fired at the stands and killed all those people, tell me you didn’t know I was near. Tell me you would never have aimed there if you knew how near I was.”
He remembers the rush of anger at losing his chance to finally regain his pride, and the desperation to provoke a fight so he could get it back. He remembers the self-loathing for the years of weakness, the memory of power, the desire to drive out everything that had made him soft. And he remembers his hand changing position by a centimeter at the last moment, as something inside him couldn’t quite manage to erase everything he’d become. He can’t hide the guilt on his face and her eyes widen, her voice drops. “Tell me…tell me you weren’t aiming at me,” she pleads in a whisper.
He can’t.
Ten days after the fight
The silence is the worst.
He could take anger. He could take yelling and hitting and throwing things but this quiet nothing was killing him. He tries to break it but every time he opens his mouth he finds that he has no words to speak.
His old room has become his again; their shared room is now hers and is off-limits. He has stopped trying to touch her after she silently but firmly pulled away from him the few times he tried to lay a hand on her back, or brush her hair off her cheek. He tries to tell himself she’s been angry at him before, that this will blow over, that he will get the chance to ask her forgiveness and she will let him back in, let him scale the fortress walls that have sprung up between them.
But in his heart he knows better. He was weak. Not the kind of weakness he once would have berated himself for, the kind that allowed him to succumb to her smile, that kept him on the planet and in her bed, that caused him to fill his life and his heart with her and with their son. The kind that he now knows, now that it’s too late, can make him stronger than he could ever have imagined.
No, this was true weakness, the sort that from the beginning of time has caused people to give in to their most craven emotions and do unforgivable things, things that poison and kill and ruin. The sort of weakness that he knows, deep down, has irrevocably destroyed the one good thing that had ever happened to him.
Two months after the fight
She’s crying. He’s always hated when she cries, the helpless feeling as he wracks his mind trying and failing to find the words to comfort her, to make her whole.
“I’m sorry. I just can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep waiting for the next time you get afraid of your emotions and do something hurtful. I can’t keep waiting for the next time you leave us.”
“I’m not going to leave again, Bulma.”
She scoffs at that. “Right. And if I’d asked you three months ago, would you have said something different? No, you would have said you were content with us. And you would have been lying.”
He has no good answer to make to that. “I’ve tried-” he begins.
“Yeah. You’ve been great the last two months. You were great for eight years before that. Eight years. And then you tossed it aside so you could have a good fight.”
The bitterness in her voice cuts him to the core. “I’m sick of being your contingency plan, Vegeta. Frankly, I’m sick of all of your bullshit. I’m done."
He wants to be angry. He wants to remonstrate with her, to accuse her of faithlessness, to hurl her mistrust at her heart like a weapon. He wants to fall to his knees and weep, to beg her for mercy, for forgiveness. But he stays silent. He knows there is no forgiveness, not for what he did. Not for the way he hurt her. He knows he deserves every word.
Three months after the fight
“Here. I need you to sign these.”
She hands him a packet of documents, which he opens. He already knows what they are but still his gut twists cruelly when he reads the top line: “Petition for the Dissolution of Marriage.”
His eyes can’t leave the paper as she speaks. She says, “I tried to be fair. I know that, Kami forbid, actual work is below your royal dignity, so I’ll settle on you enough to live on. I’ll let you stay on the compound so you can keep training in the GR, and so you can still see Trunks every day, but I think it’s best for all of us if you don’t keep living in the same building.”
The world is spinning. He struggles to breathe, his mind only able to focus a small part of itself on her explanations and justifications and the rest engulfed by the words on the page. Through the roar of the blood pounding in his ears he hears, “If you need to look this over with a lawyer that’s fine. I can get you a recommendation—”
That’s as far as he can stand before he has to leave, turning abruptly away from her and walking out. The surprise and anger on her face is obvious but he can’t spend another second in that room. Once he’s out of her sight, he flies off at his fastest speed so he can get outside as soon as possible. He makes it as far as her mother’s roses before he loses his battle with the vertigo, and he doubles over and vomits out everything he’s ever eaten.
Five months after the fight
It begins with a well-known refrain. “Dammit, Vegeta. Just sign the stupid papers. I know how hard it is for you to actually do what I ask you to do, but I need to move on with my life. For once in your existence stop being so goddamn contradictory, stop dragging your feet, and just fucking do it.” The words are familiar, but tonight the venom in her voice sparks something new.
He answers her snidely, and she responds angrily, and soon it’s a knock-down, drag-out screaming fight, they kind they haven’t had since the early days but without the undercurrent of attraction that used to soften the blows. They attack like they are in a competition to see who can cut each other the deepest, who can land the cheapest shot. He says things he shouldn’t, and she says things she shouldn’t, and it ends with him taking the goddamned papers and incinerating them with a blast of ki, and her screaming her lungs out at him while throwing anything within reach at his stupid head.
That night he takes every single bottle of liquor in the house up to the roof. There, he leans back and looks at the stars, wrapping himself in the familiar blanket of self-loathing he had foolishly begun to let go of. Tonight, he also allows himself to hate her, just a little. He hates himself for that too. He wishes the liquor was cheaper, would burn more as he swallows. As he empties the bottles, he throws each in the air and hits it with a blast of energy so the pieces fall around him like stardust. Eventually, he passes out in the pile of broken glass, surrounded by the shattered remains of what used to be something whole.
When he comes to the next morning, he drags himself into his bed and doesn’t get up for a week. He hears her pass by in the hallway, sometimes pausing at his door but never bothering to knock. “Dad’s pretty sick right now,” he hears her tell their son. He can’t bring himself to correct her. She’s not wrong. He leaves the bed only when his body makes him, to piss or to take a bite or two of the sandwiches the serving droids bring up daily. The rest of the day he sleeps, or stares at the ceiling, or closes his eyes and pretends that the pain in his chest is a ki blast that has cored through his heart and that he’s dying. It’s a comforting fantasy.
At the end of the week, the boy comes in with a bowl of chicken noodle soup in his hands. “I figured you probably aren’t contagious by now,” he says. “I thought you might be hungry and Mom always makes me soup when I’m sick.”
He looks at his son and something that had felt long dead stirs in him. “Yeah. Yeah, I could eat.” He sits up and takes the bowl from his boy’s hands, then swallows a spoonful. It’s warm and soothing and he realizes he is famished. He downs the bowl, then ruffles his son’s hair with a half-smile. “I should probably take a shower, huh,” he says, his voice rough with disuse.
Trunks laughs. “Yeah, Dad. You smell really bad.” They laugh together. After the shower, they have lunch downstairs in the kitchen and spend the rest of the afternoon playing video games together on the couch. He feels her stay out of their way.
Six months after the fight
He hears the exhaustion in her voice as she stops by his room. She doesn’t come in. She doesn’t needle him yet again about signing the papers. She simply states in a flat voice, “We’ll need to leave around nine tomorrow to get to the boat for my birthday party.” The news delivered, she turns away. By “we” he figures she means herself and Trunks, as he can’t imagine she’d want to be trapped on a ship with him.
He sleeps late the next morning, and she’s gone when he wakes. It’s her birthday. He hasn’t gotten her anything. He sits and stares at the packet on his desk. He knows what she wants, what she’s been asking for months.
Before he can chicken out yet again, he forces himself to pick up a pen and in one shot signs his name once, twice, five times. “Vegeta IV.” There. It’s done. He sits back and stares at the result as the minutes stretch out. It’s done. One more task remains. He pulls out the card he’s gotten her and writes:
Bulma,
I’m sorry I didn’t do this sooner. I’m sorry for a lot of things. But you don’t deserve what I’ve put you through. You deserve to be done with all of this. So here you are. I won’t hurt you by holding on to what isn’t there anymore.
I love you. I know haven’t said it much but it’s true. I started loving you the minute I saw you and I’ve loved you more each day since, and I always will. Know that I don’t blame you, not for any of this. Every bit of this is on me, and for that I hope that someday you can forgive me. I wish you nothing but happiness from now on.
Happy Birthday.
-V
He seals the envelope, then puts it and the packet gently on her bed—the first time he’s been back in that room. And the last. He closes his eyes and breathes in the smell of her.
When he gets back to his room, he sits on his bed. Drawing his knees up and lowering his head into his arms, he lets out the grief that’s been building. The sobs come from the depths of his body and wrack his frame over and over, pushing out every drop of air. His chest burns with the silent convulsions crushing his empty lungs until survival mechanisms in his body kick in and force him to inhale, at which point it starts over again. The world contracts until nothing is left but the suffocating pain.
Eventually, after what seems like hours, his strength fails and the sobs subside. He wants to sleep again, but he forces himself to stand. He will give her what he can for her birthday, and move himself out of her hallway and into the bedroom beneath the GR. But he can’t bring himself to start packing right now, so he pulls on his gear and heads to the training room.
Two hours before the fight
“Oh, so you did show up?”
Of course he did. She had sent her assistant in to interrupt his training session, to correct his impression that he was not expected at her party. It seems she wants to keep up appearances for her friends this one last time. So be it. He owed her that, at the least.
“Come on, the rest of the gang is here, too. Let's go over and make a big entrance together!”
Gods damn the woman. Was she purposely twisting the knife? Did he really deserve that? He can’t suppress his anger entirely as he replies. “Yeah, sure. Let's go see Yamcha!” We can form a club, he thinks bitterly.
“Oh I see. You can't even pretend to be happy?”
He wishes he could. She deserved one last happy memory. But the knowledge of what was sitting on her bed at home eats at him, and he answers honestly, “Of course not.”
She sighs angrily. “Okay fine! Suit yourself!” He watches her stomp away. She’ll be happier without him there. She’d know that if she were honest with herself.
He leans his head back, taking slow breaths to calm his shaking. This was turning out to possibly be the worst day of his life.
Forty minutes before the fight
Any other day, and this might have gone much worse. Any other day, and he would likely have rebelled at the idea of groveling. He would have choked on his conceit, blustered and bragged, put up a pathetic attempt at defiance. Sure, the world would have ended a lot sooner, but he’d still have his pride.
But today, what pride did he have to swallow? Today, what did it matter if he scraped and groveled and humiliated himself, if he played the fool, if he offered his dignity on a silver platter to be eaten with a toothpick? It didn’t mean anything. He’d already signed away the only thing that gave him any worth.
All he can think is, She doesn’t deserve this. Not today. She doesn’t deserve for the world to end on her birthday.
One minute before the fight
And so here it ends. Kneeling helpless, unable to prevent everything he loves from being destroyed.
It could be worse, he guesses. Being ripped into nothingness by a literal god of destruction after miserably failing to overcome him in battle; he supposes this wasn’t the worst way to die. At least it would all be over with. Done.
Yeah, considering how this day had gone, this wasn’t the worst way it could have ended. His shoulders relax, his head bows. Goodbye, Bulma, he thinks. He smiles, and closes his eyes.
Epilogue: Eight hours after the fight
“Hey.” She stands in the doorway, looking anywhere but at him. “Trunks is finally asleep.” She sighs and runs her fingers through her short blue hair. “What a day, huh? Happy birthday to me, I guess.”
He isn’t sure what to say. “How…how’s your cheek?” He cringes at his own words—he hadn’t even been able to spare her that pain. No wonder she was done with him.
She comes closer, sitting on the bed next to him. “It’s fine. Hurts. It’s my own fault.”
He looks down, and can’t help but ask, “Why on earth did you think slapping the God of Destruction was a good idea?" He tries and fails to suppress a smile at the memory. It was just…such a Bulma thing to do. The threat of absolute physical power had never been a reason for her to reign in her temper.
She doesn’t answer for a while. Finally she whispers, “He was hurting you.”
He looks up at her face, and is shocked to see tears in her eyes. “He humiliated you and ground your face into the floor and he was going to kill you. And you were letting him.” She takes a ragged breath. “I couldn’t let him hurt you.”
He feels tears threatening to fill his own eyes. “Bulma…” She’d been protecting him?
“And it was so much worse, because I…” She wipes her eyes and continues, “I’ve been doing the same thing to you, haven’t I? I’ve been grinding your face into the floor just like he did.”
“No, Bulma. You haven’t done anything I didn’t deserve.” His guilt overwhelms him, and he feels the desperate need to stop her words. To keep the blame for himself.
She continues as though he hadn’t spoken. “I was so angry at you,” she says. “So angry. And I had a right to be. But I’ve been acting like you aren’t capable of better, and I don’t think that’s true. It’s not fair.”
Her voice changes, slightly. “I heard you, before he hit me. You were pleading with him not to hurt me. After everything, you were still looking out for me. Trying to keep me from hurting. And I realized how much I love you for that. How much I still love you.”
His breath catches as she says, “I think…I finally believe that you aren’t going to leave again.” She puts her hand against his cheek and gently turns his head until he was looking into her eyes. “Am I right? You won’t ever leave again?”
He somehow manages to find his voice. “Never.”
She lets out something that’s half a sob, and half a laugh. “You better not.” Her face gets serious. “Because this is your last chance. I mean it. I won’t go through this again.”
He tentatively raises his arm and pulls her in, slowly, giving her the chance to pull back. She doesn’t. “I promise you, I’ll never risk losing you again. Never again.” He pulls her to him and buries his face into her hair. He sits, just breathing her in. “You are my life, Bulma.”
They sit together, just like that, for some time. Neither would ever admit to tears being shed. Finally, she pulls away. “Oh,” she says. “I almost forgot. I got your ‘birthday present.’” She holds up the packet of papers ruefully. “Do you want to do the honors?”
He takes the packet, and soon it’s nothing but ash.